Real News

OK, already bored of two days being a fashion maven. Is that the right word, maven? Maybe I mean fashion’s John Craven. That’s probably more like it.

Have a few choice selections from this week that haven’t involved vomit, or clothes. I mean, advice about clothes rather than wearing or not wearing them.

Oscar has been auditioning for the school’s co-production of Hamlet alongside the Curve theatre next year. He found out today he got a part. He is Laertes. He is pretty excited. ‘I wanted to be Hamlet, but he’s got loads of lines, so I’m quite pleased X got that really. But I didn’t want no lines, because that would be rubbish. Laertes has just the right amount of lines.’ Quite. Also: ‘I don’t understand how Laertes can poison Hamlet first and yet Laertes dies before Hamlet.’ We had the, ‘the most important person in Shakespeare always takes the longest time to die,’ discussion. I’m wondering if he’ll pay this any heed, or spend several minutes dying theatrically in the background, stealing Hamlet’s thunder whilst still not being obliged to learn any more lines?

Tallulah went to Drayton Manor Park on the school’s reward day. To qualify for the reward day you have to turn up regularly and not kill anyone or get pregnant as far as I understand it. She enjoyed it, despite being banned from the tea cups. ‘I tried to get off before it finished. I didn’t know it hadn’t finished. He was so grumpy about it.’ I asked her if she had been upset. ‘Nope. It was a boring ride and we only had ten minutes before we had to go back to the coach anyway.’

Tallulah has also had sports’ day. ‘I came 16th out of 17th in the high jump. My event was nearly last so I got to spend all the rest of the time eating snacks.’ I asked her if she was sad about her placing. ‘Nope. Sports are mostly stupid. Why would you want to fling yourself around like that? Anyway, Mr. Redman loved my ‘Fight Like A Girl Badge’ and he’s going to get one for next term.’ Fair.

I have finished the woodland section of my garden and taken delivery of my beautiful Gertrude Jekyll climbing roses from David Austin. I spent large parts of yesterday evening covered in bark, earth, compost and picking rose thorns out of my hands/hair. Also saw a spider with a luminous green/white body. Very disturbing. It looked exactly like the sort that would climb into an orifice and lay eggs, waiting for you to explode with spider babies. I confess to hitting it with a trowel. I relinquish my ambition to be the Dalai Lama yet again.

Derek is having hunting success this week having caught two mice. She loves Jason most of all in the entire universe at the moment and has brought both mice in for him as a gift. We managed to chase the first mouse out of the house. Derek scooped it up and carried it down the garden path. I followed in hot pursuit. I persuaded her to drop it. It sat on its haunches and smacked her on the nose with its mouse paw. I swear by Cheezus this totally happened. It was at this point Derek noticed it again, rather than the packet of Dreamies in my hand, and promptly picked it up and legged it through the hole in the fence where I could not follow, and no Dreamies would tempt her back. At first I was all like ‘Go! Team mice!’ and then I was like, ‘You idiot. You could have used that biffing on the nose time to bugger off into the undergrowth. Mouse imbecile.’

The second mouse arrived last night just as Jason was about to go to bed. This mouse was very small, and very lithe, which caused many problems. The last mouse had been rather fat, which meant that when Derek carried it about, she dented it rather, thus slowing it down and making it easier to work with. This mouse was so teeny it could basically sit inside the damp mouth of Derek with only its tail poking out like a Fu Manchu moustache, therefore it was bewildered but largely unharmed when she unleashed it under Jason’s desk.

Every time we managed to corner it, it leapt over obstacles with aplomb, unlike Tallulah at sport’s day. Eventually it wedged itself behind a book case and everyone but me and Derek went to bed. I systematically cleared away any debris from the floor to allow me ease of access when the mouse eventually came out. In doing this I found a mummified frog carcass and became somewhat ashamed at my slatternly housewifery. Then I was just glad that it was mummified and it didn’t smell, and learned to live with the shame. It was like a life time of therapy rolled into about sixty, intense seconds of my life.

I settled down to watch Craig Revel Horwood discover his ancestry in Who Do You Think You Are? (I am stunned that he is Australian. It explains his accent. I’d always put it down to a mild stroke he didn’t really want to talk about). Derek settled down under Jason’s desk, preening at her hunting skilz. At about half past one, just as I was darning a beloved Jigsaw sweater that was more holes than sweater, there was a kerfuffle and the mouse and Derek went into combat.

I leapt up, impressively not losing my needle nor impaling myself on it absentmindedly. I swooped, swooped on the mouse, who ran up the blanket I was wearing as a shawl, at which point I leapt athletically around, slithering out of the shawl and fashioning it into an impromptu Dick Whittington style bag, with the mouse scribbling about in the middle of it. I whipped it out and threw it all on the decking with a thunk and a somewhat spitty and concussed mouse made its way to freedom. While all this was going on, Derek, who is as thick as swill, was wandering around under Jason’s desk lamenting her lost love and making pouncing motions towards the bookcase where the mouse no longer was. The idiot.

In unrelated news I have done some pretty intense hoovering this afternoon.

4 responses to “Real News”

I woke up all grumpy pants, today. Loved this post. Can now change out of the grumpy gear and get into posh stuff for the wedding we have to attend. When I get bored, as I shall, I shall remember your adventures with rodents and then I shall be able to smile – genuinely. xx